“No, my lord, there was no room on so small a parchment-and, frankly, I do not think he could write quickly enough. His letters are horribly clumsy, and his spelling atrocious.”
“Still, it was worth the cost of a teacher, to gain this report! Well, we shall have to wait till the man comes home, for his reeve to question him more closely. If it is her Majesty’s wizard, though, we shall not have long to wait till he seeks to cross the border and stop the unrest at its source!”
The secretary looked up in alarm. “He could set all of King Boncorro’s plan awry, my lord, and your own as well!”
The chancellor waved a hand to dismiss the notion. “The king’s plans are my plans, LoClercchi, no matter how I may caution him and plead the course of prudence.”
“And your plans are his?” the secretary asked, amused. But Rebozo shook his head. “I cannot claim that, for I would not of myself depart so quickly from the old king’s ways. Indeed, I tremble for my young master, and hope that the Devil will not too quickly become so angry as to destroy him.”
“And us with him.” LoClercchi’s voice trembled. “Let us hope our young king keeps his balance on the tightrope he has stretched for himself.”
“Fences have their purposes,” Rebozo agreed, “but serving as pathways was never one of them. Still, we have no choice but to resign or to follow him-and I am too old to seek new work, and too deeply steeped in sin to wish to reform.” He looked up at his secretary. “You, however, are still young, LoClercchi. If you wish to go, you may.”
LoClercchi stared at his employer, silently weighing the relative merits of a virtuous life of uncertain income and modest means, with the certainty of wealth and privilege that came from serving the chancellor. His decision was almost instantaneous, for he had fought the long battle against this temptation years before, and periodically since. Like many young men, he decided there would be time enough to work on salvation later-after he had made his fortune. “I am loyal to you, my lord.”
Rebozo nodded, satisfied. “Good, good. Let us deal, then, with the problem of this Lord Wizard.”
“Perhaps he shall not become a problem,” LoClercchi said hopefully. “Perhaps he shall stay on his own side of the border.”
“Perhaps, LoClercchi, but also perhaps not. Certainly he is nothing to worry about-yet. But I prefer to do my worrying in advance; it makes no sense to take undue chances-and it is my duty to King Boncorro not to wait until the man becomes a threat. Write for me.”
The secretary seized parchment and ink. Rebozo began to pace as he dictated, “My dear young Camano-you are, I believe, currently in the castle of your father, the Count d’Arrete, hard by the Alps in Merovence. I suspect that a nobleman or knight may soon call at your gate for hospitality, claiming to be only a knight errant, or a messenger about the queen’s business, or some such. Be not deceived-this man is a wizard, and may well be the Lord Wizard of Merovence.”
He went on to detail exactly how the young lord should test the man, and how he should deal with him-in no uncertain terms. When the secretary had finished writing, Rebozo took the quill and signed the document. Then he took it to a separate table, sprinkled it with a powder that stank abominably, muttered a verse in an arcane language, and touched a candle’s flame to a corner of the document. It went up in a flash that lit the whole chamber and was gone in less than a second. The chancellor nodded, satisfied. “He will find that on his table when he comes to his chamber this night, a hundred miles to the north.” He gathered his robe about him, shivering. “Glad I am that I do not have to suffer the rigors of that climate, so hard by the mountains! Well, we shall see what young Lord Camano may make of this wizard. In any case, we shall discover his purpose.”
He turned back to his secretary. “Now-issue orders that as soon as the cooks and scullery maids are done with their work, they be taken to my audience chamber. As the servers are released from their duties, let each be taken to join them. Then I shall question each one alone, and closely.”
LoClercchi looked up with a frown. “What good is that? Whoever poisoned the wine, he shall already be fled!”
“He shall,” the chancellor sighed, “if he was here at all, and not some sorcerer enchanting the wine from miles away-or a wizard; let us not forget that our young king has enemies in both camps now.”1 “What sorcerer has n-” But Rebozo’s glare froze the words on his secretary’s tongue, and he did not finish the sentence. “Of course, there are his courtiers, too, any one of whom might have dropped poison in the wine when the server was ogling one of our oh-so-casual beauties,” the chancellor went on, as if there had been no interruption, “but our good Boncorro would certainly never approve their questioning on so mere a suspicion. No, we shall go through the forms, LoClercchi, but we shall learn nothing. I would that we could torture a few of them as we did in the old days, so that we might at least gain a satisfying answer!”
“Even if it were not true,” LoClercchi murmured. ‘True!“ cried the chancellor, exasperated. ”What matters truth? Satisfying our master-that is everything!“
Chapter 3
The Captain of the Guard gave Matt a jaundiced look. “A knight errant, without armor?”
“I lost it at the last tournament,” Matt explained. “I know, I know, I’m a little old to be a knight bachelor-but what can you do? Some of us are just more talented than others.”
“Well, you would not be the first knight to come to this door when he is in misfortune,” the guard admitted. “Still, I can tell by your bearing and your raiment that you are indeed a knight.”
That gave Matt a feeling of satisfaction. He’d worked at choosing upper-class clothing that looked just worn enough to be right for a knight with a string of bad tournaments behind him. The bearing, of course, came from actually having been knighted. That was the way things worked in this universe. “Thank you, Captain! Now, if you could send someone to guide me to your lord, I should like to pay my respects.”
“Aye, and that is all you will pay,” the soldier grumbled. “Ho! Page!”
A passing boy stopped passing and sprinted up to the captain, skidding to a halt that ended in a perfunctory bow. “Escort this stranger to the count,” the officer told him, “and be mindful that he is a guest!” Then he snapped his fingers, and a hostler came forward to take Matt’s horse. “Sir Matthew of Bath, you say?” The Count d’Arrete gazed up at the ceiling, stroking his beard. “Ah! Now I have it! ‘Tis a town in Angland, is it not?’
Matt always marveled that England, Scotland, and Ireland had pretty much the same names in this universe as they did in his own-Angland, Scotia, and Eire. All the other countries had names he scarcely recognized, though he could pick out their sources. On the other hand, the English language that he knew and loved didn’t exist here-everyone in Angland spoke the same language spoken in Merovence, and throughout Europe, for that matter. There was no English Channel in this version of Earth, so Hardishane, this world’s counterpart to Charlemagne, had conquered the Anglo-Saxons, Welsh, and Scots, too. Eire had joined of its own free will, or at least become an ally-Matt wasn’t too clear on the history; the books in Alisande’s library only gave him a vague general outline, and he hadn’t had the time to go to Angland and check on the primary sources. He did gather, though, that the Vikings had been pretty thoroughly repulsed, though he wasn’t sure how. There was a lot of the history of this universe he didn’t know-including what had happened in Latruria. He did know that the capital city of the ancient empire had been named Reme, not Rome, which presumably meant that Remus had won the fistfight, not Romulus-not that it made much difference. Beyond that, he had only the most sketchy outline of Classical history, and what he had was suspect-it sounded entirely too wholesome to be Roman, not that such considerations would matter now. “It is, your Lordship. There are medicinal baths there. Personally, I don’t think they heal you so much as just make you feel better-lying around in hot water always has that effect on me, at least.”